Following are excerpts from the unofficial transcript of a CNBC EXCLUSIVE interview with David Tepper,Appaloosa Management founder & CIO, today on CNBC's "Squawk Box" (M-F,6-9AM ET). Additionally, below are links to embeddable videos of the interview.

All references must be sourced to CNBC.

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Tepper on Economy Getting Better It's so overwhelming. The economy is getting better, autos are better,housing's better it continues to improve, they can't find enough people to work in housing, that's the only thing holding it back right now.

Tepper on Deficit Shrinking Because of tax increases, because of budget cuts, because of growth in the economy, and also because of Fannie Mae paying back money to the government,and Freddie Mac soon to pay back money to the government, the deficit over the next six months is shrinking massively.

Tepper on Deficit Financing We have over $500 billion dollars we're going to buy over the next six months,and now we only have a deficit that's less than 100 over the next six months.

Tepper on True Fed Taper If there's a true taper, there'd better be a true taper or else you're back into the last half, I think, you might be into the last half of '99. So guys that are short, they had better have a shovel to get themselves out of the grave that they're in.

Tepper on Second Half of Year The private sector of the economy, what we care most about seems to be in pretty good shape. As soon as the sequester is over, it's going to be a really interesting second half of the year.

Tepper on Avoiding Overheating I think there will be a natural way to do it because the numbers are not as big as you think they are into the future. It's because of deficits coming down,and the gap, how they can take it down. Because you're going to take it down with growth naturally. You'll want, at some point the Fed will want the interest rates to go up so you won't have overheating.

Tepper on Economic Jelly Doughnut Anybody who's been on a diet knows you can get off the jelly doughnuts and still survive.

Tepper on Early Recovery We're very similar to an early stage economy, we probably have years to run an early stage economy. We don't have inflation, cost of utilization is low so you have room there, labor and unemployment is high so you have room there, there's no inflation on the horizon so we have a little bit of room to run.

Tepper on Apple We still have a position in Apple. We bought a little below 400, just a little bit. It's okay right here, you know it's okay, it's just, to me it's another thing in a tech basket, so to speak. I think it should more or less perform with the market. I along with everybody else is waiting to hear what they have to say, do they have something revolutionary on the horizon? Revolutionary. Or do they have something evolutionary. Evolutionary, I would like evolutionary.If they don't have something great and fantastic, make a bigger screen for goodness sake. And by the way, while you're making a bigger screen while you have this great sort of iTunes ecosystem, promote the ecosystem and make a cheaper phone so that you can expand and promote the ecosystem because that ecosystem can have a very high multiple. So if you don't have it that way, go that way, go that way. If you don't have a Steve Jobs around to do the revolutionary sort of thing, do the evolutionary thing. If they don't do either, we've got a problem.

Tepper: Economy Shows Early Signs of RecoveryDavid Tepper,Appaloosa Management founder & CIO, shares his views on how the Fed will taper out of its bond-buying program; and discloses what he is buying and where he sees the economy headed.

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